TCU creates ‘fine mesh’ of public accounts and targets ministries with higher spending

The financial statements of the largest ministries of the Executive Power will receive special attention from the TCU (Union Court of Auditors), which created a kind of fine mesh of public accounts to increase the rigor in the diagnosis of possible irregularities.

A rule stipulated by the court in March of this year provides objective criteria for determining which folders will fall into this fine mesh. One of them is to answer, individually, for at least 2% of the expenses of the Budget.

With the new rule, the ministries of Education, Defence, Infrastructure, Agriculture and Labor and Welfare will need, for the first time, to report in an integrated way to the TCU, which will analyze the whole work in the management of these bodies.

Economy, Citizenship and Health are also on the list, but they were already being asked to present more comprehensive reports.

Ministers of State may be held accountable if serious irregularities are detected that can be attributed to their actions.

The results will also guide the annual assessment of the president’s accounts for 2022, to be judged by the court of accounts next year.

One of the targets of the TCU’s magnifying glass, the MEC enters the inspection map in the same year in which it suffers wear and tear in the face of complaints and indications of misuse of public funds.

In one of the cases, mayors point to a business desk at the MEC, operated by pastors Gilmar Santos and Arilton Moura, to expedite the release of values ​​to managers close to them and to city halls indicated by the centrão, a political bloc supporting the Jair Bolsonaro government ( PL).

The situation of the then Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, worsened after the Sheet reveal, on March 21, an audio in which he cites the prioritization of city halls under the intermediation of pastors and claims that it was a “special request” from Bolsonaro. He left office a week later.

In April, the Sheet showed that the MEC allocated BRL 26 million to purchase robotics kits for schools in small towns in Alagoas that suffer from a series of basic infrastructure deficiencies, such as lack of classrooms, computers, internet and even water piped.

The release of funds to allies takes place at the same time that the government blocks the release of R$ 434 million to city halls across the country, leaving construction of daycare centers, schools, classrooms and courts at a standstill.

Court technicians say that the inclusion of the MEC in the list of so-called “significant units” to be more rigorously inspected is a coincidence. The portfolio performs 3.37% of the federal budget and, therefore, fulfilled the criteria of the new rule of the control body.

Until 2020, the analysis of government accounts was carried out by the TCU in a diffuse way, targeting the executive secretariats (second most important post in a ministry) and the secretariats of each portfolio.

In the Economy, for example, the Federal Revenue, the National Treasury and the PGFN (Procuradoria-Geral da Fazenda Nacional) were regular targets of the rigor of the cut of accounts, given the importance of the amounts managed by these bodies.

In addition, not all ministries responsible for a significant amount of expenditure were called to account annually. There was an alternation rule, and some folders could only present management reports, more summarized. The list was defined year by year by the technical units of the TCU and the CGU (Controladoria-Geral da União).

As of 2020, the analysis was expanded, but there was still no defined criteria for the selection of inspection targets. To give you an idea, the FNDE (National Fund for the Development of Education) had to provide an account since then, but the MEC could only present a management report.

Now the analysis is more comprehensive and integrated. In addition, the ministries that meet the criteria will be systematically submitted to a judgment of accounts by the TCU.

The new system is compared by technicians to the methodology of the Federal Revenue, which has a special structure to analyze the compliance of the declarations of large taxpayers, who need to collect millions in taxes annually.

Rapporteur of the decision that instituted the new rule, TCU minister Antonio Anastasia highlighted in his vote that the criteria will improve the performance of the court of accounts.

“If, on the one hand, the adoption of budget expenditure and equity relevance criteria restricts the universe of Accountability Units (UPC) classified as significant for the purposes of judgment by the court, on the other hand, the set of analyzes in each process will be much more extensive and in-depth, allowing a more effective assessment of the quality and regularity of management”, said the minister.

The existence of a fine mesh of accounts does not prevent the TCU from acting in smaller ministries, in case there are indications of irregularities to be investigated. To this end, the court may institute so-called special account takings.

The new inspection model was developed following recommendations from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), a kind of club of rich countries, of which Brazil wants to be a part.

In 2012, the OECD diagnosis pointed out that the TCU audited government accounts even before evaluating the statements of managers or ministries, a work that could provide important subsidies for the first task.

For Élida Pinto, professor at FGV-SP and prosecutor of the Public Ministry of Accounts of the State of São Paulo, the new model can be positive, as long as it does not generate “bureaucratic overload” for the TCU, given the scope of the analysis.

She points out that the court of accounts usually assesses compliance with certain obligations, such as minimum spending on health and education.

“Of course, if the TCU is suggesting thinking about the management cycle of relevant ministries, that makes sense”, says Pinto.

“Is he complying with the plan, is he delivering what society expects? This would improve the qualitative control of expenditure, achieving not only legal compliance, but also the results”, says the professor.

TCU’s criteria for choosing targets for the most rigorous inspection

– Ministries with expenses that individually represent more than 2% of the Fiscal and Social Security Budget. Added together, they need to reach at least 90% of total spending.

– Inclusion of the General Social Security Scheme Fund, in any situation.

– State-owned companies, dependent or independent, whose combined holdings reach 90% of the permanent holdings of the Union.

– Inclusion of the Central Bank of Brazil, in any situation, due to its financial relations with the Federal Government.